Tuesday, October 11, 2016

October 10, 2016 (Reuters) Russia
will create a permanent naval base in Syria to expand its military footprint in
its closest Middle East ally, a government official said on Monday, a week
after Moscow said it was considering reopening Soviet-era bases in Vietnam and
Cuba.

The move, announced by Russian
Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov, is further evidence Russia is building
up its capabilities in Syria despite a partial drawdown in March and another
sign it is digging in for the long haul to help prop up President Bashar
al-Assad.

"By doing this Russia is not
only increasing its military potential in Syria but in the entire Middle
East," Senator Igor Morozov, a member of the upper house of parliament's
International Affairs Committee, told the RIA news agency.

A Reuters analysis of publicly
available tracking data shows Moscow has steadily built up its forces in Syria
since a ceasefire collapsed in late September, doubling supply runs by air and
sea.

The base plan, which will involve
upgrading and expanding an existing naval facility at the port of Tartus which
Moscow leases from Syria, is part of a push to expand or create a new military
presence abroad.

The Izvestia newspaper said Moscow was also in
talks to open an air base in Egypt, while the state-owned Rossiskaya Gazeta
daily noted that Russia has said it wants bases in Venezuela, Nicaragua, the
Seychelles and Singapore too. At odds with Washington over Syria and Ukraine,
Russia has engaged in a bout of saber-rattling in recent weeks, moving S-300
surface-to-air missiles to Tartus, nuclear-capable missiles to its European
exclave of Kaliningrad, and reinforcing its Syria strike force. The Russian
Defence Ministry said on Monday that Russian paratroopers would for the first
time also take part in war games with Egyptian paratroopers on Egyptian soil
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